


starlight trackers

by yonderdarling



Series: the best parts of knowing [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, M/M, doctor and the master still breaking my heart, post-Death in Heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2637254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonderdarling/pseuds/yonderdarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'"You win," says the man who will always lose. It sounds like "I love you."' Missy, after Death in Heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	starlight trackers

 

 

> _"And in the streets, the children screamed,_  
>  _The lovers cried and the poets dreamed,_  
>  _But not a word was spoken_  
>  _The church bells all were broken."_

\---

"Oh, Doctor. To save her soul? But who, my dear, will save yours? Say something nice. Please."  
"You win."  
"I know."

\---

The world smells of petrichor and metal and fear, and saltwater. The sky is no longer grey, grass is greener, looks fresher. Nutrients in a graveyard, can't beat them. The grass grows long and lush on Gallifrey now, but the Doctor doesn't know that. He could have guessed.

The little doe-eyed snivelling one (Clara Clara Clara Clara) is threatening to kill her, and she laughs because the precious Doctor would never let her do that. And look, there he goes, swooping in - good man! - keep Clara's hands clean but his drip red blood time space and stars.

But he's got such beautiful eyes this time around, and they're a matched set again. They matched last time, bouncy and all english and glossy and suits and now they match, older and delightfully Victorian and both with such beautiful eyes. She looks into them now, and sees the pain. Fresh pain, protecting Clara. Fresh pain, why must you always do this? Old pain. Why do you always do this? I loved you once, why do you always hurt me? Surely it hurts you too.

He's got such a pretty voice this time too. The accent is a new one, and the anguish is gorgeous and she says,

"Say something nice."

A goodbye, at least.

She got nothing when he left her to burn so long ago (silence, Won't You Show Mercy To Your Own-) an I'm Sorry I'm So Sorry I Forgive You (and he'd clutched at him and cried on him and he smelled warm and like Gallifrey and home, which are different things always, and saltwater), and an I'm Sorry, and a Wonder What I'd be Without You (and that had been the sweetest tasting one of all).

She'd wanted to drink his tears back then, and she still wants a taste. She died for him back then, and knows he wept.

They'll never know, after all. They're not listening.

"Please."

"You win."

Love isn't always an emotion. Love is a promise. He holds her control pad wrong, eyes focused on her, wet and wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey crying-lying. He's holding the control pad wrong, he's set it differently, but he hasn't seen the Cyberman standing behind him. A renegade. She smells something familiar in the air, under the metal and dirt and decay. An old enemy.

And a true threat. The Doctor would never let her die, not now, not today, in a graveyard. He might kill her in a struggle, a scrape in life-or-death, or he'd die saving both of them, but never in cold blood. If she was trying to kill him, he would talk her down. If she was hanging from a cliff, he would pull her up. Not in cold blood. Never again. He told him that once, when Gallifrey still remained, ancient and feared and dull dull dull and neither of them had returned.

"Say something nice."

Pause.

Breath.

Pain in the ice-ocean-blue eyes. Decades spent together, centuries apart.

Something in her chest hurts, because he wouldn't. He never would.

"Please."

"You win," says the man who will always lose. It sounds like "I love you."

"I know," she says, Time Lady Victorious. It sounds like "Always."

The Doctor shifts his position - is he activating the teleportation device, or will he be too slow? He doesn't know of the ancient ally that stands behind him.

Her bracelet is good for one last teleport, and that's what she does, as he presses the button and as the Cyberman fires. She looks him in the eye, and feels almost like bowing as she vanishes before him, to all intents and purposes, leaving him as the last once again. She wishes he could have seen his face. The anguish would have been beautiful to behold.

 

\---

 

Missy stands in the Nethersphere - empty now, echoing and beautiful and useless - and sets the self-destruct timers and hops into her TARDIS without a second thought. She rematerialises in 1200s Ukraine, then 55ASF (her third favourite era) at the Yukonova Dwarf Star, then swaps to 44th century Saturn, moves backwards in time until it's 3784 and the great Saturnalian Empire is hustling and bustling and moving trade and people and she can hide amongst the conciousnesses.

The Doctor didn't even dare look for survivors after his last jaunt to Gallifrey. His mind had been closed. Perhaps opening himself up to the possibility was just too painful. He's not listening.

She sits wearily on the steps leading up to her TARDIS console. This one - the one she left on the Silver Devastation, so long ago and so far from here - is still set on war mode, everything silver and stark and minimal. She's been meaning to change the desktop, but the Nethersphere was much more fun to play with. The Promised Land. The Forbidden City. Heaven. She smirks. Afterlives. As if humans knew what it was to truly fear death.

But now the Doctor will have his mind cast wide open for her, unless he's distracted by some small child who needs help crossing the street or God forbid, precious Clara Clara Clara Clara. He'll move heaven and earth and everything in between to find Gallifrey, when he realises she falsified the coordinates. He'll cast dimensions aside to find her. She can't believe he didn't go back to check for it. Doesn't he realise the first place to start is the last place you looked?

Fallen out of practise. Too used to being the last. Mind cast wide open, for Gallifrey and for her, and whatever detritus might have fallen out along with her. There is no detritus left. She dealt with it accordingly. The Mistress, the Master. A whole universe for her and the Doctor, two big fish in a very big pond. Silver fish. Glowing fish. He can run after her, and she can run after him. And perhaps then one day, they can rest. They're both so old right now. It's been a millennium at least, for him.

In the Time Lock, time passes differently and in the wrong order. She ran from the war the first time, and this second go round saw her doing things she never thought even she would do. Daleks are scary, Daleks make anyone sweat. But Time Lords turned on each other, blood soaked and blank eyed, Gods meeting in battle over a planet that was in death throes.

Blood makes the grass grow back, thick and rich and redder.

Time to move again.

 

\---

 

She knows him, and knew he would return to the empty circle of black, and so before he would arrive, the Master sets starlight trackers, minute particles of bright energy that will tell her when he returns home, to find it empty and gone. She blows them a kiss and watches them spiral out across the void, waving.

She doesn't need them, in the end. She waits at the other end of the universe, in the beginning, but still hears his screaming. It's silent and beautiful and his hearts break like collapsing glaciers and the blows he lands on the TARDIS ring out like gunshots. Sparks fly out and stars die and planets fall out of orbit and no one else hears. She screams back across time and space and no one knows.

No one hears her, because they're the last two and he's still not listening.

Rage, rage, against the dying light. She can't go home either.

 

\---

 

She spends a week in orbit of a dying star, watching it collapse in on itself and burn colours no other eyes could never comprehend or behold. It flashes icy blue and orange and then pink, rosy pink almost disconcertingly. As it bleeds gold and scarlet she turns away and remembers the collapse of the Cruciform and flees.

Betelgeuse 7, planet for the relaxing holidaymaker, is a stop her TARDIS chooses. She walks along the beach unnoticed by happy families, sees the sights and gets drunk out of her mind. In one bar, in her peripheral vision she sees a lanky idiot in a bow tie. He sits in the corner with a red-head and a gawky boy in a windbreaker, and they spot her as she's finishing up her sixth blue drink with a little umbrella. She pops it into her hat, pays for the corner table's drinks too and leaves a big fat tip.

The next week, the bar burns down and takes the rest of the street with it. She sets more starlight trackers and watches from afar as a man in tweed with a sad face returns and picks through the ashes on his hands and knees, turning his fingers and face black. There is nothing to be found.

 

\---

 

Someone is on the Silver Devastation, alone, near the end of time itself, and she waits there and watches the Doctor - old, stiff, tired. Eyes glassy, hands gnarled, hands bruised.

She sees him alight from his TARDIS, shuffle forward through the light silver dust. His eyes are blue beacons against the black sky, but his shoulders bend forward. He looks alone. Lonely old man. She tightens her grip on her console. He walks forward again, pulls his screwdriver out, scans the region. She hopes the war shields on the TARDIS hold, and they do. She is invisible.

Empty, empty, empty. She wants to run her fingers over his lips as they twist downwards, as the screwdriver is returned to his pocket. He picks up a handful of dust and lets it fall, watching the journey of the grains as they dreamily drift downwards.

The Doctor returns to his precious ship, and she tracks his journey to one of his repeat bases, the Eye of Orion. It's only then she sighs and slumps to the floor, holding herself up on the TARDIS railing.

"You're the most beautiful thing in the universe," she says to the ceiling. "You have such pretty eyes."

Once she knew he loved her back. But he's not listening.

 

\---

 

There's catching up she has to do, and finds herself in World War II (Earth version, of course). She dresses for the part, this time, wide-legged gunmetal grey factory suit, a wide belt and the requisite gas mask, which she dons with gusto.

She doesn't even worry about this Doctor hearing her come closer, smelling her, seeing her. Like a broken radio, the recent loss of Gallifrey has knocked his mind out of tune and all he would hear coming from her - if he's listening - is white noise. White noise. She is part of the crowd that comes for the downed ship, and she sees the white flash of his smile against the darkened nation. He picks up a small child and swings him round, gold lights dance around them like stars.

"Just this once!" he's shouting, and that accent is ridiculous and adorable, and Missy grins beneath the mask because no one could hear her, Queen of Evil, think the word "adorable." She wonders how he went from this capering Northerner to the drippy, gel-covered Doctor she'd met last time she'd returned. Or how he had become a magician-esque Scottish cement block with a penchant for reusing the clothes from his Third body.

She'd quite liked the third one.

 

\---

 

It's all quiet on the Western front the day she hears him at Gallifrey's coordinates. She's always listening.

"I'm sorry." he says it quietly, but his mind screams it, and his hearts are still in pieces on the floor.

She leaves the TARDIS on the shores of the Silver Devastation and in a blue flash arrives in a place almost as familiar to her as the Doctor himself.

He's looking out at the black but he's surrounded by stars, and he's always so beautiful. He doesn't look round as she steps closer. She could stab him in the back and he wouldn't be surprised, just watch her face and the stars until the life leaked out of him. The pulse thrums in his neck, and she could taste it. She wants to touch it. Finally, achingly, because he's so real and so aware, she places her hand on his shoulder. It isn't like electricity. It's like gravity. It's an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object, a collision felt around the universe.

No one knows. No one's listening.

He grasps her hand like a drowning man grabs at a rope. "UNIT thinks you're dead."

She entwines their fingers together, like so long ago, brings them down between their bodies. UNIT always thinks she's dead, or escaped with no help, or missing, or gone. He's never disputed it. They never questioned it.

"I don't think I could have done it anyway. "

His eyes are so blue. They've both gotten so old.

"We both know that's not true." she says, and they watch the black together. Eventually, she leans in to his stiff body and wraps an arm around his too-thin waist. He feels like an unyielding block of jagged ice, then slowly shifts to fit her side. Warmth. Not the feverish heat of humans, but comforting warmth and he smells the same, and the faint electric buzz of his mind, still curious and unfit and questioning how she could be here.

"Once," she says, and he jolts beside her. "You promised you'd love me forever."

He's an iceman again, stiff and unyielding. His mind jumps, still unused to the presence of his own kind.

 

"You promised me you would never stop." she continues. "Always. You said always."  
"Why do you hurt me, then?" he asks, pulling her closer, to face him, cupping her face in his hands. "Why do you always?"  
At this point in time, she doesn't know.  
"I love you," she says, in case it makes a difference. 

He tilts her head down, rests his lips on top of her head, breathes in. She wonders if he has his eyes open or closed. Slowly she lets her head rest on his chest.

"Forever turned out to be longer than I expected. Forever turned out to be more eventful than I expected." His hands fall to his sides, ball into fists. "I love you, but you hurt me and you hurt and kill my friends, and the people I make into my family. How can I ever trust you?"

"I've killed you, too," she reminds him, looking up. "You trusted me once. It's different now. We're the last."  
"We've been the last before, and you died rather than live like-"  
"Imprisoned. With your pity." she steps back, spits the last word like it's venom. "I never wanted pity. I wanted us to be the same, again, equals."  
"You lied to me though - if we were equals…tell me where Gallifrey is." He reaches for her, takes her upper arms. She leans forward into his chest and breathes in again, familiar, safe, home, saltwater, smoke, sadness. His hands rest lightly on her waist, as if she's fragile or she's intangible. Along the edges of her consciousness, she feels the flickering brightness of his mind tentatively touch at her sharp angles, relearning old pathways, reaching across new ones.  
"The stars look brighter without it there," she mumbles into his chest, then turns her head to the side to look at the void. "Dark and deep black. White, bright, starlight." They're different up close. "They're pink, and red, and gold and ice-blue." They're red and gold and burning.  
"The deep and lovely dark," he says into her hair. "Please tell me."  
"We'd never see the stars without it."   
The Doctor sighs again, and turns so his cheek is resting on top of her head, looking out where Gallifrey isn't. 

"You said you loved me," he says after long moments of silence. "So, will you ever tell me? Will I ever be able to find it?"  
"I wanted to hurt you," she says. "I thought I was going to die, and I wanted to hurt you, and I heard you. I was listening."  
"You hurt me."  
"I heard you. You screamed so loudly, and I screamed back." She presses her face into his shirtfront, then steps back, free of his hands, free of his flighty, disbelieving mind. "I don't know. They know where they are, relative to their own, new dimension. But I couldn't say now. I don't know. They never told me, they never trusted me."

 

More silence. The Doctor exhales shakily, breathes in. Outside, space is vast and immeasurable, silent and uncaring. Once, she thought the stars themselves should weep for the loss of Gallifrey. For their loss. For them. Lower their lights, for a day of mourning. In memoriam, Gallifrey. Always was, never will be.

 

"We're the last," he says finally. "Of this universe."  
"We're the last," she agrees.

 

The Doctor makes an abortive motion, violently jerking forward and for an awful, sickening second she thinks he's about to collapse - he's lost Gallifrey half-a-dozen times over, and for a wild second she again wonders what his tears taste like.

And then, the unexpected.

He grabs her by the waist and kisses her, not like when she kissed him in the mausoleum when she was playing at being a robot, and not like in the graveyard where it was tender and a thank-you and an apology and reverential. Hard and desperate, like he is still drowning and she is oxygen.

They fall back, or he pushes, and the TARDIS doorjamb is against her spine as she shoves back into him. He tastes like blood and ashes, one arm locked around her waist, the other on her neck and jaw and she loses control and comes back a few minutes later with her own fingers tight in his hair and pulling on his neck to get him closer closer closer. His mind buzzes along the edge of hers, unformed and unpractised and wonderful. His lips move down her throat, feeling her racing pulse and he bites the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She gasps and presses her hips against his, drags her hands up through his silver hair. Heat surges under her skin as the Doctor slips from her grip.

She licks a drop of blood from her lip and feels the Doctor fall to his knees before her. He rests his forehead against her stomach.

"We've both gotten so old," he says, shoulders slumped.  
She runs her fingers across his hair. "I was just beginning to enjoy myself," she says.  
"I can't do this again."  
It's her turn to kiss the top of his head, and she then tilts his head up to meet his beautiful old eyes.  
"You - are the Master. Mistress. You-"  
"You have known me longer than any of your human friends could ever hope to live. They could never understand."  
Then, because he's the Doctor, and timing is not his strongest area. "Martha might. Clara might."

Abruptly, she steps back into the TARDIS, turning her back on the void outside. He almost pitches over, then steadies himself and struggles to his feet.

"You know they'd never speak to you again if you told them," she says, remembering in exacting, glorious detail the things she had put the Jones family through. What a good year that had been. "They would be disgusted to know you, this version of you." He looks to her, confused, as if he's forgotten that she is the Master and this is the game they always play, caught in between his goodness and wonder, and her darkness and war. Matched set. Salt and pepper. She takes in his silvery hair. Literally. But the Doctor carries war in his wake also. He sees her reaching for her transporter bracelet, and his shoulders slump. Hands go in pockets, eyes look down.

"I will see you soon," she says.  
"Should I be expecting you?"  
"You won't know," she says. "Just like the old days."  
He looks at her with old eyes and regret etched on his face, and reaches for her. Her skin prickles and she wants to let him.  
"You're so beautiful," she says, because it's nice. And then she is gone.

 

\---

 

> _"And I will show you something different from either_  
>  _Your shadow at morning striding behind you_  
>  _Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;_  
>  _I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”_

\---

**Author's Note:**

> Written while listening to "American Pie," which is where the first set of lyrics come from. The other excerpt is of course TS Eliot's "The Waste Land." Thanks to Ilana for her eyes and feedback.


End file.
